My Life in Botswana

- Bathing (pronounced “bath-ing” not “bathe-ing”, seriously, if not pronounced exactly like this people have no idea what you are talking about) is now something that only occurs a few times a week and consists of me kneeling in my bathtub and pouring water over myself from a bucket aka a “bucket bath”. Although I am lucky to have a bathtub, I have decided that baths are gross, especially when you are covered in dirt and sand, and thus bucket baths are my preferred method of bathing.

- Cleanliness is overrated. That goes for everything from clothes to the floors in my house. Each article of clothing I own is worn approximately 2 or 3 times before it is washed. You would understand if washing meant spending hours over a bucket scrubbing each piece of clothing by hand, inevitably ending up with blisters on your knuckles.

- Internet is a luxury that can only be obtained during the day and thus when all of you are sleeping. I am lucky to have internet at my office…well I have it every other 2 minutes as it switches between on and off. Though for the most part I am able to check basic things like email, although sending email is a different story.

- There is no real need to be timely. I used to be late to everything as my friends in high school can attest. I then made the effort to change that in college, which I would like to say I succeeded in. Now, as if part of a joke, I must return to my old ways. Not because it is acceptable to be late here, although on some level it is, but more because nothing here ever starts when it is supposed to. This is called “African time”, something known and referred to here even by Batswana. So now I know that if someone says something starts at noon, they really mean 3pm.

- I may need to reevaluate my consumption of meat (just kidding – a good Texan girl like me?) The killing of animals, reptiles, and insects is something I have determined I will witness on a regular basis here. So far I have seen the slaughtering of 3 cows (seriously saw the entire process from living to dead and hanging on a hook), the torture and death of a lizard, and the beating of a chicken, not to mention the dozens of insects that have unfortunately died due to my hands and big can of doom.